A View That Makes Sense
Moms View Message Board: The Kitchen Table (Debating Board): A View That Makes Sense
This was emailed to me and I think it makes alot of sense.
An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State
An Objectivist Review
by Robert Tracinski | The Intellectual Activist
September 2, 2005
It has taken four long days for state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the disaster in New Orleans. I can't blame them, because it has also taken me four long days to figure out what is going on there. The reason is that the events there make no sense if you think that we are confronting a natural disaster.
If this is just a natural disaster, the response for public officials is obvious: you bring in food, water, and doctors; you send transportation to evacuate refugees to temporary shelters; you send engineers to stop the flooding and rebuild the city's infrastructure. For journalists, natural disasters also have a familiar pattern: the heroism of ordinary people pulling together to survive; the hard work and dedication of doctors, nurses, and rescue workers; the steps being taken to clean up and rebuild.
Public officials did not expect that the first thing they would have to do is to send thousands of armed troops in armored vehicle, as if they are suppressing an enemy insurgency. And journalists--myself included--did not expect that the story would not be about rain, wind, and flooding, but about rape, murder, and looting.
But this is not a natural disaster. It is a man-made disaster.
The man-made disaster is not an inadequate or incompetent response by federal relief agencies, and it was not directly caused by Hurricane Katrina. This is where just about every newspaper and television channel has gotten the story wrong.
The man-made disaster we are now witnessing in New Orleans did not happen over the past four days. It happened over the past four decades. Hurricane Katrina merely exposed it to public view.
The man-made disaster is the welfare state.
For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency--indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people: they have been saying that this is not what we expect from America. In fact, it is not even what we expect from a Third World country.
When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us. I have seen this a hundred times, in small examples (a small town whose main traffic light had gone out, causing ordinary citizens to get out of their cars and serve as impromptu traffic cops, directing cars through the intersection) and large ones (the spontaneous response of New Yorkers to September 11).
So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?
To give you an idea of the magnitude of what is going on, here is a description from a Washington Times story:
"Storm victims are raped and beaten; fights erupt with flying fists, knives and guns; fires are breaking out; corpses litter the streets; and police and rescue helicopters are repeatedly fired on.
"The plea from Mayor C. Ray Nagin came even as National Guardsmen poured in to restore order and stop the looting, carjackings and gunfire....
"Last night, Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco said 300 Iraq-hardened Arkansas National Guard members were inside New Orleans with shoot-to-kill orders.
"'These troops are...under my orders to restore order in the streets,' she said. 'They have M-16s, and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.' "
The reference to Iraq is eerie. The photo that accompanies this article shows National Guard troops, with rifles and armored vests, riding on an armored vehicle through trash-strewn streets lined by a rabble of squalid, listless people, one of whom appears to be yelling at them. It looks exactly like a scene from Sadr City in Baghdad.
What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the very buses that have arrived to evacuate them, causing the drivers to drive away, frightened for their lives? What causes people to attack the doctors trying to treat patients at the Super Dome?
Why are people responding to natural destruction by causing further destruction? Why are they attacking the people who are trying to help them?
My wife, Sherri, figured it out first, and she figured it out on a sense-of-life level. While watching the coverage last night on Fox News Channel, she told me that she was getting a familiar feeling. She studied architecture at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, which is located in the South Side of Chicago just blocks away from the Robert Taylor Homes, one of the largest high-rise public housing projects in America. "The projects," as they were known, were infamous for uncontrollable crime and irremediable squalor. (They have since, mercifully, been demolished.)
What Sherri was getting from last night's television coverage was a whiff of the sense of life of "the projects." Then the "crawl"--the informational phrases flashed at the bottom of the screen on most news channels--gave some vital statistics to confirm this sense: 75% of the residents of New Orleans had already evacuated before the hurricane, and of the 300,000 or so who remained, a large number were from the city's public housing projects. Jack Wakeland then gave me an additional, crucial fact: early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose. There is no doubt a significant overlap between these two populations--that is, a large number of people in the jails used to live in the housing projects, and vice versa.
There were many decent, innocent people trapped in New Orleans when the deluge hit--but they were trapped alongside large numbers of people from two groups: criminals--and wards of the welfare state, people selected, over decades, for their lack of initiative and self-induced helplessness. The welfare wards were a mass of sheep--on whom the incompetent administration of New Orleans unleashed a pack of wolves.
All of this is related, incidentally, to the apparent incompetence of the city government, which failed to plan for a total evacuation of the city, despite the knowledge that this might be necessary. But in a city corrupted by the welfare state, the job of city officials is to ensure the flow of handouts to welfare recipients and patronage to political supporters--not to ensure a lawful, orderly evacuation in case of emergency.
No one has really reported this story, as far as I can tell. In fact, some are already actively distorting it, blaming President Bush, for example, for failing to personally ensure that the Mayor of New Orleans had drafted an adequate evacuation plan. The worst example is an execrable piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail, by a supercilious Canadian who blames the chaos on American "individualism." But the truth is precisely the opposite: the chaos was caused by a system that was the exact opposite of individualism.
What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. They don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.
But what about criminals and welfare parasites? Do they worry about saving their houses and property? They don't, because they don't own anything. Do they worry about what is going to happen to their businesses or how they are going to make a living? They never worried about those things before. Do they worry about crime and looting? But living off of stolen wealth is a way of life for them.
The welfare state--and the brutish, uncivilized mentality it sustains and encourages--is the man-made disaster that explains the moral ugliness that has swamped New Orleans. And that is the story that no one is reporting.
Source: TIA Daily -- September 2, 2005
Copyright© 2002 The Intellectual Activist
Very interesting.
Welfare has become like fish.
Give a fish to a man, he eats for a day.
We need to give them fishing poles and teach them how to use them.
I would call it interesting. I think some of it is right on and some is way off base.
I would largely agree. You can't blame any government agency for what people are doing in New Orleans. I would say that if it wasn't for all the criminal down there causing so much problems then attention to evacuating and rescuing people would be easier and quicker. I think it is ridiculous how people are behaving in the midst of a crisis. I feel bad for the innocent good people being victimized by all these thugs.
As someone who grew up in the inner city, I disagree with the sweeping generalizations and stereotypes this article tries to perpetuate.
The evacuation order issued by the mayor of New Orleans left behind 3 groups of people
Those that didn't have the resources to leave
Those that didn't understand the situation
Those that didn't want to leave
Unfortunately, "criminals and thugs" aren't usually people of great resources, since if they were, they probably wouldn't have become "criminals and thugs"...duh.
Therefore, among those left behind there was a much larger percentage of "bad apples" than the general population of New Orleans.
Combine that with a "life or death" struggle for survival (no water, electricity or food) and you set the stage for this group to cause havoc.
I venture that you would see the exact same situation anywhere a disaster like this occurs.
Have you forgotten the stories of what happened after the tsunami in Indonesia?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4145591.stm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/07/world/main665533.shtml
These situations bring out people's *REAL* nature, Good and Bad.
Judging people who don't have adequate financial resources to evacuate as not having "values" to "respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face" is so callously ignorant I won't even respond to it!
YES, there were individual criminals and thugs victimizing people.
But the majority only wanted what everyone deserves to have for their family:
A roof over their head
A warm dry bed
A hot meal
Very well said John!
The article seems to bring up all the bad actions of a relatively few people and blame it on the whole group.
I agree with John.
"An Objectivist Review"
No, it wasn't. It was a ridiculous attempt to score some political points on the backs of people who are suffering. It was someone with a clear agenda who evidently didn't think it was distasteful or disgusting to use Katrina to puff up his arguments.
And basically, it was an attempt to divide what happened into an 'us' and 'them' as in, 'what else could you expect from them?" and, "That would never have happened if it had been us."
Here's the antidote for anyone who felt a little sick or else was almost persuaded by that article. Listen to it...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4835939
What I found incomprehensible was this : "early reports from CNN and Fox indicated that the city had no plan for evacuating all of the prisoners in the city's jails--so they just let many of them loose" If this is true, then it is inexcusable!!!
As far as the "politics" of it all I won't comment - but I DO have a question. John made a statement about what people deserve. I don't necessarily disagree that everyone should have access to these basic comforts, but why does anyone deserve anything? Aren't people supposed to work and earn what they have? That's not the same as deserving it ... that's being a productive member of society. Unless, of course, we're no longer a capitalist democracy but a socialist state.
Ame
Inasmuch as you have done to the least of these, my brethren, you have done also unto me.
WWJD?
They did not let them loose. There were pictures on CNN on prisoners sitting on overpasses surrounded by guards.
As for, "Unless, of course, we're no longer a capitalist democracy but a socialist state." is there no middle ground? No room for compassion and help at all?
But I think Ginny addressed that perfectly.
Prisoners weren't let loose. They were evacuted - before the folks in the Superdome and convention center were evacuated.
I think folks underestimate how difficult it is to pull yourself up out of generational poverty. There is a domino effect that keeps poor people poor and wealthy people wealthy.
There is such a large gap between what the govt provides as far as benefits to poor folks and how much money it takes to be self supporting that it's not an easy transition.
For example, you get a poor person a FT job paying $7/hr with benefits like health insurance. The employee gets health insurance for free, but her dependant care coverage for her kids is $250/month. Should she spend a quarter of her take home pay on insurance premiums? Heck no! Even if she did she would still have to pay out of pocket and deductibles. It's better for the mom to decline that coverage and just use the county indigent hospital for free health care for her kids or use a govt program. Even for her, the worker, if she has a medical situation she won't have the money for health care even though she has insurance - $20 co-pay for doctor, $50 co-pay for prescriptions, $1000 deductible for certain tests. Someone making $7/hr can't afford having health insurance! Someone making $15/hr often can't afford health insurance. You have to HAVE money to fully realize the "benefit" of health insurance.
I have worked with so many people whose salaries get to $27-29,000 and that's as high as they can go or they lose their Section 8, or their free lunch or their dental clinic access. A $1,000 a year raise isn't going to cover all the benefits that are lost because they went over the maximum salary. I've worked with people who have to turn down raises because of this. They are just being practical. They aren't bad people.
So, what's the answer? I don't know. I've seen this article all over the internet though. Some people seem relieved they can finally blame the victim. How can anyone say that these people don't have values because they didn't evacuate the city? Of course not everyone was going to be able to evacuate. That takes a car and money and physical mobility. The residents were told to go to the Superdome by their govt. Of course, those of us with money, means and access to reading material know not to trust the govt. But these poor and sick people blindly trusted the govt and headed to unstaffed and non-supplied facilities. The Red Cross had long ago said they would not set up a shelter anywhere inside NO in case of hurricane. But did poor people know that?
Poor people being treated like crap is nothing knew. As a country we need to take a look at this. There's a Simpsons episode where the airport flight plan was rerouted to go over the Simpsons' house. They went to Washington and got it changed and at the end of the show, I think it's Homer who says, "The flight plan is back where it belongs - over the homes of poor people."
Well said Mommmie
I did not mean we should not help the victims of the hurricane. We've sent a donation to the Red Cross (of our need - not our want - just to toss in another bible quote).
I think I mean philosophically. Why do we have such a sense of entitlement in this country? Why does anyone deserve anything they have not worked for? It goes beyond WWJD (I don't think J would agree to enabling people not to be productive) - I agree with Mommmie - there is no easy answer.
It also goes beyond those on welfare expecting things. People have such easy access to credit that it has become another form of enabling entitlement.
"I can buy it now, no matter that I've paid five times the price by the time it's paid for, why should I wait and save the money? I deserve to have a new ..."
It is a pervasive cultural and societal illness - this sense of deserving and entitlement and it crosses all boundaries.
So here's my question again: what makes anyone deserving of that for which he/she has not worked?
Ame
Why do we have these wealthy teenagers with a sense of entitlement? Why do these teens expect to be given new cars for their 16th birthdays? Why is a used Honda Accord not good enough for them? Why must it be a 2005 BMW?
It's a good question. Why do we have this sense of entitlement? Maybe for the poor, it's because they feel like they've been screwed at some point. Maybe for the well-off teens it's because their parents put them in the center of their universe for their entire lives and provided them with everything they needed, wanted and more and they got used to it and it's all they've ever known. Maybe that's what happened to the poor, too. They got used to it and it's all they've ever known.
I heard about this on the news this evening so I did a search so I could post a link here..
Barbara Bush: It's Good Enough for the Poor
John Nichols Tue Sep 6, 1:08 PM ET
The Nation -- Finally, we have discovered the roots of George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism."
On the heels of the president's "What, me worry?" response to the death, destruction and dislocation that followed upon Hurricane Katrina comes the news of his mother's Labor Day visit with hurricane evacuees at the Astrodome in Houston.
Commenting on the facilities that have been set up for the evacuees -- cots crammed side-by-side in a huge stadium where the lights never go out and the sound of sobbing children never completely ceases -- former First Lady Barbara Bush concluded that the poor people of New Orleans had lucked out.
"Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them," Mrs. Bush told American Public Media's "Marketplace" program, before returning to her multi-million dollar Houston home.
On the tape of the interview, Mrs. Bush chuckles audibly as she observes just how great things are going for families that are separated from loved ones, people who have been forced to abandon their homes and the only community where they have ever lived, and parents who are explaining to children that their pets, their toys and in some cases their friends may be lost forever. Perhaps the former first lady was amusing herself with the notion that evacuees without bread could eat cake.
At the very least, she was expressing a measure of empathy commensurate with that evidenced by her son during his fly-ins for disaster-zone photo opportunities.
On Friday, when even Republican lawmakers were giving the federal government an "F" for its response to the crisis,
President Bush heaped praise on embattled
Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown. As thousands of victims of the hurricane continued to plead for food, water, shelter, medical care and a way out of the nightmare to which federal neglect had consigned them, Brown cheerily announced that "people are getting the help they need."
Barbara Bush's son put his arm around the addled FEMA functionary and declared, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
Like mother, like son.
Even when a hurricane hits, the apple does not fall far from the tree.
_____________This is me speaking now__________
They actually played the audio of this interview on the news tonight. She is actually chuckling while she gives the interview.. She actually says, "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this insert chuckle here this is working very well for them."
WHAT!!!!
This is working very well for them????? You need to hear her tone of voice... And when you ask if this is racial or about financial status you should play her words over in your head.. The women making these condescending comments is the very woman that raised the man that is supposed to serve and protect us.. The US citizens as a whole not only the chosen few.. If we had been speaking about some wealthy community she would be raising holy heck about the conditions these people are housed in but because they are poor and majority black "this is working very well for them." PFFFT, give me a break...
Bobbie I can only hope that she is just senile.
I heard that interview too, what a total disgrace. There is another quote that is being sent around that was on one of the musical relief programs. George Bush doesnt like black people. I dont think that that is the truth, I dont think George Bush likes anyone that cant pay for his services. It makes me sad that there are black people out there that think that all white folks are out to get them. I understand where they might get that impression, especially in this situation, but it is wrong. And I dont think that that attitude has helped the black people at all or will help them. I could have accepted the fate of being poor. I chose not to. I am really sad that sometimes people think that white people are all to blame for the poverty in black communities, but being black doesnt mean you have to be poor, just like being white doesnt mean you have to be rich.
I really didnt care for this article. We are all individuals. Sure there is some truth in some of it, but when we pigeon hole someone into a race or class we do a disservice to everyone. We all have purpose, we are all children of God, and he doesnt care what we have, but what we have in our hearts.
But these poor and sick people blindly trusted the govt
Precisely why they are still poor. The government, IMO, created a dependent state of perpetually poor people with the welfare program which in turn makes the government more powerful because it sees that these people can not survive without it. Government programs have resulted in people who are lacking in any motivation or purpose to be self sufficient. As you said, why would they want to risk losing the free benefits?
I understand the catch-22 some welfare recipients are in, which is why government needs to get their money out of the welfare programs and into job training and promoting businesses to open up in the area that will provide jobs, good jobs, to these people so that they can get their sense of pride and self worth back.
That's the essential message of entitlement thinking, and entitlement thinking ends up keeping people poor because it takes away from people their incentive. It says, "Okay, my government will take care of me. My government is going to take care of my needs and my emergencies and so forth, because I'm voting for the people that are going to do that," and as we know from world history, or this country's history, there is no successful example. Call it the welfare state. Call it socialism, whatever you want. There's no example of it ever working.
These people were told to walk to the Superdome or to get there on their own, however they could get there, to bring their own food. This is their local government that was promising them all these years to take care of them. "Bring your own food. Use the hoof express. Get yourself to the Superdome. By the way, we don't expect the electricity to last all night because this is a bad storm. So we know the bathrooms aren't going to work."
As far as Mrs. Bush's comments, I have not heard them. I believe they were in bad taste, but you cannot necessarily use her comments against her son. yes, she raised him, but once he became an adult he began making his own way in life and became his own person. We should only hold him acountable for his own actions, not those of his mother's.
I just think it sad that the news is trying to embarress a former first lady that is 80 years old.
Take a two sentence quote and ruin a womans image. The press should be ashamed.
I do think it was some dementia or senile thing. I never heard anything said bad about Barbara Bush all these years. Also this a woman who is used to knowing what to say to the press. So this is totally unlike her to get caught saying something that can be misinterpreted.
Barbara Bush - Actions speak louder than words. http://teacher.scholastic.com/researchtools/articlearchives/civics/presid/flgall/flbush.htm
You know her husband is head of gathering charity for Katrina victims with Bill Clinton so her husband probably encouraged her to go down to the superdome so he could collect more donations for the people so they could get more apartments and what they need. So Barbara Bush was on a mission of mercy to get contributions for the people effected by hurricaine Katrina. I think they intend to get apartments for everyone once they find their loved ones. I think some people want to stay in the super dome untill they find missing loved ones... or some people are in too much shock to move again so soon or some people think they are moving back very very soon.
I do think the people of Texas are being amazing to the displaced people. But it looks bad since they are still living in the dome. But I don't know how many of them need to stay their so they can find their loved ones or recover from shock. Maybe Barbara Bush was saying that there is going to be windfall from this hurricaine. Victims families of 9-11 got close to a million dollars each. (I think some got 600,000) Some werid formula they had.. So maybe that is what is she what talking about.
Barbara Bush
Barbara Bush has lived a life that reflects her husband's varied career in business and public service, her active role as mother and grandmother, and her energetic commitment to a wide range of social issues.
Barbara Pierce Bush was born on June 8, 1925, grew up in Rye, New York, attended Smith College, and married George Bush on January 6, 1945. They have five children: George W., Jeb, Neil, Marvin, and Dorothy; four daughters-in-law and one son-in-law; and 13 grandchildren.
Mrs. Bush has chosen the promotion of literacy and reading as special areas of focus. Among her many affiliations with literacy groups, she continues as an honorary sponsor of Laubach Literacy Volunteers and is a member of the National Advisory Council of Literacy Volunteers of America, Inc. and an honorary member of the Advisory Council of Reading is Fundamental.
Mrs. Bush has appeared on "Mrs. Bush's Story Time," a national radio program emphasizing the importance of reading aloud to children. She has written two books, C. Fred's Story and Millie's Book, whose proceeds benefit adult and family literacy programs.
Mrs. Bush is honorary chairperson of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy, an organization whose mission is to support the development of family literacy programs, break the intergenerational cycle of illiteracy, and establish literacy as a value in every family in America.
As part of her efforts to bring recognition to outstanding literacy and education programs, Mrs. Bush visited countless libraries, schools, adult and family literacy programs, and businesses that provided for employee education and skills improvement. She particularly encouraged private sector support of education and literacy, and spoke widely at conventions, symposiums, and meetings where literacy and learning were the focus. Mrs. Bush corresponded with thousands of children and adult learners, professionals, and parents who wanted to share goals and achievements with her.
As an advocate for volunteer, community, and corporate support of schools, Mrs. Bush served as honorary chairman of the National Association of Partners in Education and the Washington Parent Group Fund. She took a particular interest in the problem of learning disabilities and encouraged many national organizations that seek greater public awareness and effective treatment of learning disabilities.
She also sought wider public awareness and support for other programs that help children and strengthen families, serving as honorary chairman of organizations for child abuse prevention, adoption, and child safety.
Mrs. Bush spent many years as an active volunteer for a variety of causes and remains a strong advocate for volunteerism.
Mrs. Bush is an exercise enthusiast, and she greatly enjoys reading, gardening, needlepointing, and being with her family.
just think it sad that the news is trying to embarress a former first lady that is 80 years old.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
She made a boneheaded comment. At 80 years of age having lived the life she did I think it's fair to say most people expected better of her. I don't think it was senility, she's still a very bright woman and either calling it senility or trying to use her age to excuse her comment are both more demeaning to her then pointing out her thoughtless comment.
Admire her or not, it was just a really stupid, thoughtless thing to say and I'm betting she realized that pretty quick after the fact. She's human, she does make mistakes and she has gotten fairly burned for that.
Lisa, that was really well said.
As far as mama Bush, Dawn's got it. She said something dumb. With all these years of living in the spotlight, that she's gone this long without a slip is great. Cut her some slack.
Ame
Is there a link to the entire interview?? Before I have a comment I would like to see/hear/read the entire thing. You can take any sentence out of a story and make the whole thing look bad.
I think that's about the entire thing, Vicki. And while I agree that it was a boneheaded comment, I am more than willing to cut Barbara Bush some slack. Not GW, but certainly Barbara. She is a fine lady, and is entitled to mistakes. It's a shame she had to make this one, but if I can go flying around the country at 80 and look as good as she does, I hope no microphones are around to catch mymistakes.
"On the tape of the interview"
This is an article about just ne or two comments she made during an interview. The whole interview that is talked about has to be somewhere doesn't it??
Listen to the FULL *unedited* tape of her visit
(Real Player):
http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/marketplace/2005/09/feature_barbarabush_sept5
Then listen to the NPR program (including Bill Clinton saying much the same thing about Houston) go here(all Real Player):
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2005/09/05/PM200509051.html
You'll quickly realize how SOME PRESS people seized on one sentence taken completely out of context, to advance their very obvious AGENDA.
Not suprising, but disgusting nevertheless.
Thanks John!! That is what I thought!!
Amazing how this kind of stuff spreads:
Google Search on Story
Listening to the whole interview, the comment does sound a lot different.
Here's a lengthy NY Times article, listing many of the things that went wrong. Sounds like there is more than enough blame to go around to everyone involved. I'm breaking up the address so that it doesn't stretch the page, as I don't know how to post actual links. When you paste it in your address, remove the spaces to make it work. Or just go to www.nytimes.com and read the article "Disaray Marked the Path from Hurricane to Anarchy."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/11/national/ nationalspecial/11response.html? hp&ex=1126411200&en=cd7ee70e1622076b&ei =5094&partner=homepage
As distressing and disturbing as all of this has been, I think what distresses me the most is the reports of the deaths of nursing home residents who were not evacuated. There is a saying that a society should be judged by how it treats the most helpless - children and the aged.
The Ny Times is a liberal rag.
The paper just ran an editorial, by an Alessandra Stanley, in which she blamed Geraldo Rivera, from Fox news, of pushing a National Guardsman out of the way of saving an eldery woman, so he could make the rescue and have the photo op.
Much review of the tape was examined. Her accusations were false. YET, neither she nor the paper/rag retracted or apologized for her false accusations. (She is the Jason Blair of the Style Section.) This was in no means the first time this paper has printed false information or declined to report facts.
You can read this at www. tv.com/story.
The Ny Times has not even made any front line stories of the Oil for Food scandal. If they do mention it , it is buried in the inner pages. IMO, that is because they support the UN. The people behind the paper want everything to go through the UN, which is corrupt, instead of going through our Congress and President.
When one refers to the NYTimes, I roll my eyes and then laugh. If this is where their information is coming from then it is biased and
misinformed.
And of course a conservative news organization always gives a unbiased view.
That's your opinion, Emily. However, I don't believe that is true, either.
Behind every article, newsclip, editorial, etc is of course a person with their own views. I'm saying that if something is stated which is shown false, it should be retracted.
Annie, you said "The NY Times is a liberal rag", but seemingly disagree that a conservative news organization could be biased. I agree that a mistake should be retracted, but an editorial is the opinion of that writer, not "news". If she was wrong, and CHOSE to retract her opinion, fine... but it's not something the paper should retract because it isn't reporting the news.
Ginny the reports that you have heard about the nursing home patients are, at least in some cases, incorrect. They have found staff members among the dead at at least some of the homes. Also if you were an able bodied person working in one of the homes and all of a sudden, as in a matter of seconds, the water raised by feet, you could only save yourself. I know that there are many people suffering from guilt about not being able to save loved ones, or even strangers, because the water came too fast and strong. I have heard many stories about people trying to hold on to another person only to have them swept away. So I think that the staff of the homes are getting more of a bad rap then they deserve. Now back to the debate. 
Crystal, a lie is a lie. Her opinion of the actual event was a lie. It is backed by actual video. Editorial columns are published in this newspaper. Opinions of course. But if you are caught not telling the truth....own up to it. Admit it. The newspaper knows this was a false statement; slandering Geraldo Rivera's reputation.
I'm all for the first ammendment.....Free speech! But slander and lies are never justified.
NYT article
Kris, I'm not sure what you mean by the reports I heard about nursing home patients. I did not and do not for a moment blame the staff on duty at the time the water rose. I only commented that I am distressed by the deaths of nursing home patients and that a society is judged by how it treats the most helpless.
What I have heard is that some nursing homes have been entered and patients have been found dead. I think it is a matter of fact that some nursing homes did not evacuate. I don't doubt that staff stayed with the patients and either died themselves or left only at the very last minute, when they could not have saved any of the patients anyhow. What I don't understand is why they weren't evacuated, but it may have something to do with the administrators balancing the trauma of evacuation against prior successful experience with "sitting it out".
I do think that the city should have had better plans for evacuating nursing homes and hospitals once the evacuation was made mandatory - maybe they did, but lacked the resources. The NY Times article refers to unsuccessful attempts to get school buses, and I'm sure there were nowhere near enough ambulances to go around, even if they had been able to move through the rising water.
Whatever the reasons, I am distressed by the reports.
Just horrible... Like the national guard or someone couldn't get a list of nursing homes and check them out to see if they were evacuated... Argh...
On the subject of nursing homes, when I was faced with possibly having to place my mom in one in the past couple of years, I checked out several in our area. One of the first questions I asked of them was whether or not they had an evacuation plan in the event of a hurricane, and what it was, where they went, how they went about it, etc. That was high on my list, obviously.
So, that being said, like anything else, and particularly with a fairly large number of people involved, and probably most of them disabled/sick, it may not have been possible to actually move them all out before the weather conditions and traffic conditions got too bad. If ambulances were required, which in mos cases, they may be been, for transport, there was no way they would have gotten all those patients out unless they started days in advance.
I can only imagine the anguish some of the staff must have felt at the nursing homes, knowing that there really was no way to get all of the people out, and that they would surely die if left there.
The nursing home issue is just another facet of this tragedy.
I had seen a few pieces on the news about how terrible it was that the staff had abandoned those poor nursing home residents, and how could they. I felt like I should say something in their defense.
thread spammed 08-12-06
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